Saturday, November 17, 2012

Ooof! I haven’t seen an O’Connell look this uncomfortable…since Charlie O’Connell was draped over the railing with a PowerDyne Revenge-generated gash to his head!

But this year’s awards also made a bit of history in that they were televised for the first time. And just in case you didn’t make it to the MLB Network to watch the big reveals, here are all eight for you. This wouldn’t be of any significance, except for the fact that BBWAA secretary/treasurer Jack O’Connell, the man who presented the awards, is the most painstakingly awkward human on the face of the planet. You have more charisma than him, and most likely, you have very little charisma.

O’Connell looked so desperately like he needed a teleprompter or a script, but sadly, did not have one. Shifty eyes, and weird starts and stops marked his performance. He is also uncharacteristically sullen for such a joyous event, so I don’t really know what gives. And with no audience to picture in their underpants except for Billy Ripken, he was doomed from the start. Without further ado, Mr. O’Connell:

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Jack is a former colleague and a wonderful guy - just ask his fellow BBWAA guys. A funny guy, too, in the press box. And actually, he has more charisma than you.

He spent the bulk on his baseball-writing career at the Hartford Courant, and wound up at mlb.com before I think semi-retiring.

His role at BBWAA is to inform winners, which in the old days meant calling up guys and saying, "Yes, you are a Hall of Famer."

They switched things up this year to make it "a show," but MLB, the network, and BBWAA should have recognized that there was one challenge here - Jack doesn't like dance like a puppet when the red light goes on.

Clearly a mistake by all involved in the TV production, but crappy to have Jack the object of the ridicule. Bad casting, among other things.

I'm a Connecticut native and I don't remember much of his writing at the Courant. Did he cover Boston or New York? The nnames I mainly remember are the sports op-ed guys like Jeff Jacobs, Owen Canfield, Bob Sudyk, and Bill Lee. They had headshots. Lee was the columnist back when I was in grade school. His column was titled "With Malice Towards None." I had no idea it was a Lincoln reference.

I feel like in earlier generations people would not be made fun of for not having the skillset of Matt Vasgersian.

Nowadays being a smooth-talking grinning glad-hander is something you go to college to learn as a career, instead of something you learn by joining Toastmasters at age 35. So I guess it looks strange when any normal person is asked to do a job like this instead of hiring a professional glad-hander.

Jack covered the Mets for the Bergen Record through the 1980s, then covered the Yankees for the Courant in the 1990s. Became the overall baseball columnist for them at some point, then off the mlb.com.